Pendleton

the old mill in Pendleton, Ore.

This afternoon, Joyce and I will drive down to the closest Pendleton Outlet (near Lodi, Ohio--38 miles southeast of us). It's nearing "that time of year," of course, and in the Dyer family (for many years) "that time of year" has meant "Pendleton Time."

But now, I see, we're not going.

While checking the distance on Google Maps, I looked for the location in Google's search window and saw that Pendleton was no longer listed among the outlets at Ohio Station Outlets down in Lodi. I called the number of the store. Disconnected.

Damn.

This was going to be a lovely day--warm sunny weather, a drive with Joyce, a visit to Pendleton (which, for me, is a return to childhood), an upward spike in a credit-card balance. Some thoughts of some happy faces on Christmas ...

Damn.

My father grew up in Oregon, only about thirty miles from the town of Pendleton, site of the woolen mill. We visited that place--the mill--when I was a boy, and I've visited it since. Took Joyce there. Our son, Steve, when he was a wee one. One of the first presents I bought Joyce was some wool there, wool that Joyce and her mom (a wonderful seamstress) transformed into a dress.

I still have a dear cousin who lives in Pendleton. She, by the way, was instrumental in saving their old Carnegie library from razing. It's now an arts center. (And this reminds me--O, horrible! O, horrible! most horrible!--as the ghost of Hamlet's father cries out--about how my home town of Enid, Okla. did raze its old Carnegie in 1972. Damn.)

Pendleton Center for the Arts

For years, our parents gave my brothers and me Pendleton shirts--the sort of shirt to wear over another one. Warm, warm, warm. A half-dozen remain, hanging in my closet.

Damn.

Over the years Pendleton gifts have been SOP in our family. Blankets, sweaters, shirts, skirts, a cape (!), even weird little things, like woolen-covered notebooks.

We have (at least) three Pendleton blankets on our beds. (Nothing warmer.) We have given our son and his sons blankets for Christmas. And my mom. And my brothers ...

Damn.

I'm wearing Pendleton right now (a blue pull-over top my son and his family gave me for my birthday earlier this month). Throughout the winter I'll wear one of my Pendleton sweaters--lighter ones, heavier ones--just about every day.

Damn.

Oh, sure, we can buy some Pendleton online. Some department stores (remember them?) carry some Pendleton. Or, sometimes, I get lucky at Marshall's or TJ's. I found two good sweaters there a couple of years ago--price slashed because it was spring; I've worn both of them already this winter.

Damn.

But ... going in a store, smelling the wool, feeling the products you're going to buy? Gone, gone, gone, gone, gone.

Damn!